Rolan flashes his lights, but the driver ahead gives a distinct bird high against his rearview mirror, refusing to pull to the side and let us pass.

The sign for First Roach Pond rushes at us, the fork ahead divided by a tiny grass island with an electrical pole smack in the middle, a gravel outlook over the valley to the right.

The car hugs the line. The instant I realize Rolan means to break right—sending us careening into the pole or skidding off the outlook into the valley—I catch sight of a row of mailboxes along the main road, the hint of a drive in the trees ten yards beyond. “There!” I shout, pointing ahead. He follows the car and breaks hard, killing the lights as we pull into the trees.

Not two seconds later, the Cherokee flashes around the bend in pursuit of the taillights in front of it. I close my eyes, and listen for the angry screech of tires, the stillness like torture. 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .

Rolan throws the car into reverse, backs onto the road, and then accelerates south.

“Find us a road,” he says. “He’ll be on us in thirty seconds.”

We go two miles before I get the signal back. “Nothing east through the mountains. West we’re in the lake. This is it.”

We pass three cars in silence. Nothing in the rearview mirror.

“You know you can’t go back,” he says.

“There’s a police station in Greenville—”

“No.” He shakes his head.

“If he’s trying to kill me, we have to go to the cops!”

He tears his eyes from the road long enough to look at me as though I’ve lost my mind. “Cops? The cops can’t help you!”

“What do you mean? Of course they can!”

“Do you think you would’ve gone to the lengths you did if the police could help? You don’t get it, Audra. He won’t stop! He’ll never stop until he kills you. If not today or this week, then next month, next year. One day when your guard is down, he’ll find you. Like he has now, like he did before. And next time, he’ll kill you.” He pounds the steering wheel and shouts, “Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?” I shout back.

“Go in and—” He gestures to his head. “Erase everything!”

“I don’t know,” I say. Except that I had a reason. It’s all I know and trust in this world. “I don’t know,” I say again, quietly. “So you better start talking.”